So I am continuing on with the City Girl series and am seven scenes away from finishing the first draft of Book 3.

This is Portia’s story. You remember her? Derek’s twin sister from Under My Skin? Yeah, she’s got the stage now and a lot is going on with her. I am excited about her story and can’t wait to finish it. Don’t ask me when it will happen. I don’t know. I am a totally indisciplined writer. I will write every day for five days and not write at all for ten. But it will get done before the end of the year by the grace of God.

The problem is I keep getting sidetracked. Example? While I was writing Portia’s story, Malcolm’s story kind of slipped into my head (if you remember who Malcolm is I applaud you – you’re the real MVP). Anyway, had to stop and scribble down a scene and save it for later. I am really loving this group of people though so I think Book 3 is not the last we will see of them. That’s exciting!

It’s my birthday month! Yes my birthday was earlier this month and just like I have done around every birthday for the past four years, this year I am releasing my fifth novel Under Covers. This one is more of a novella and a shorter story but it is packed with real life, real love and real faith which is all I am about when it comes to writing.

I invite you to meet my girl Naomi. She is about to get married to Jordan Lennox, the son of a former governor of New York and a successful businessman in his own right. And to top it off, he loves her like crazy. Sounds perfect right? Well it is, until Naomi faces a crises with her missing sister Camille. And when the search for her sister sends her back ‘home’ to the island of her birth, the real drama begins. Suddenly a lot of things that she had carefully packed away, things that she neglected to tell her husband-to-be are now coming to the surface. Will she be faithful to God and the man of her future or will she succumb to the security of her past? You got to read it to find out!

I really enjoyed writing this story. I actually finished it late last year then I lost the document and had to rewrite half of it. But I think all things happen for a reason and you have gotten the best version of Naomi’s story. I invite you to take the journey with her. Pick up Under Covers on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks or your favorite ebook retailer. And of course you can get the paperback on Amazon. And please let me know what you think!

This week has been the week of awkward conversations. It seems like every day this week I have had to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone important in my life. Sometimes about things that I needed their opinion on, other times on things that I had done that I needed to make right. On every occasion I spent the hours of the day prior in mental agony about the conversation that had not yet happened. In some cases I would lie awake the night before thinking about what might happen. Continue reading →

Some time ago I went shopping for a dress for a specific occasion. I had been thinking about this purchase for a couple days, and I had in mind exactly the dress I wanted, down to the cut, color and fabric. So you can imagine how frustrated I was after several afternoons of several hours of shopping did not produce the dress I was looking for. Then, when I had almost given up, I found the dress. It was the exact colour and design I wanted, in the exact fabric I imagined. I was over the moon – until I tried it on and it didn’t look at all how I thought it would. I was beyond disappointed.

I spend most of my days with children. Some days I am with children who are functional. Other days I am with children who function differently. Society has lots of labels for this second set, labels that are mostly polite ways for saying they are damaged. We live in a world where broken-ness is not tolerated. Instead it is something to be defined, analysed and fixed. This is fairly easy to do when you wear your damage at a surface level – when the way you walk or talk or behave is clearly different from the way everyone else does. But what about when your malfunction is not on the surface? What about what your broken-ness is so deep inside that no one can see it? Or so deeply woven into who you are that you don’t realize it is broken-ness until you try to untangle the reasons you behave the way you do?

I am an over-thinker. I get hung up on what people say and what they don’t say. I obsess about what I say and how I think people may have interpreted what I said. It may be a bit neurotic, but I know I am not the only one with hang ups. I have a co-worker who gets hung up on dirt, so as soon as she comes in to work she starts wiping down everything with Lysol. I know someone else who is obsessed with their food preparation, so they need to know who prepared what they’re going to eat before they eat it. Naturally, this person finds it difficult to eat out. A lot of people have quirky hang-ups. Continue reading →

I have the memory of an elephant. An elephant with short term memory loss. So in order to ensure that I get things accomplished I have to make lists and use calendars and the like to remind myself of what I need to do. It doesn’t help that I usually have a million things going on from week to week. Between my ever-changing work schedule, my activities at church, appointments with my family, favors for friends, and the volunteering I manage to squeeze in, I can barely keep track. Continue reading →